K1000 assembled in Hong Kong

I have several vintage Japanese 35mm SLR cameras. I noticed a sticker on the bottom of a Pentax K1000 that says: assembled in Hong Kong. I have a few Spotmatics and some say Honeywell and some say ASAHI Pentax.

What is the timeline of the Pentax cameras? I know the Spotmatics were very popular starting in about 1965. I know the K1000 was produced for a very long run right up to the time digital cameras were taking the marketshare away from film cameras. Who can shed some light on the topic?

Late model on the K1000. Plastic film spool shaft....

Still great little camera.

 

“Production of the largely hand assembled camera was moved from Japan, first to Hong Kong in 1978 and then to China in 1990, to keep labor costs down. The "Asahi" name and "AOCo" logo was removed from the pentaprism cover to de-emphasize the company name in keeping with the rest of the "Pentax" line. The meter components changed as Asahi Optical searched for suitable supplies. The metal in the wind shaft was downgraded from steel. Cheaper plastic was substituted for the originally satin-chomed brass top and bottom plates and aluminum and steel film rewind assembly.[8] Note that the use of lighter plastic lowered the weight of the Chinese-assembled K1000s to 525 g.”

Edited February 19, 2020 by Moving On

Late model on the K1000. Plastic film spool shaft....

Still great little camera.

 

“Production of the largely hand assembled camera was moved from Japan, first to Hong Kong in 1978 and then to China in 1990, to keep labor costs down. The "Asahi" name and "AOCo" logo was removed from the pentaprism cover to de-emphasize the company name in keeping with the rest of the "Pentax" line. The meter components changed as Asahi Optical searched for suitable supplies. The metal in the wind shaft was downgraded from steel. Cheaper plastic was substituted for the originally satin-chomed brass top and bottom plates and aluminum and steel film rewind assembly.[8] Note that the use of lighter plastic lowered the weight of the Chinese-assembled K1000s to 525 g.”

Moving On thanks for the information. It is always a quest for cheaper parts and labor.

If memory serves, the plastic was added after the Hong Kong model.....

If you like those you might like a Pentax MX.

All mech.

A bit smaller.

You can still get a nice one on eBay if you are patient and careful.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Moving On

AFAIK the 1st Spotmatic came out in '64? - Asahi already came out with some revolutionary SLR features before them. -read a bit more at (link) http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Pentax but @Moving On must have spotted an even better source.

Honeywells were just rebadged for the US market.

Considering how hyped and overpriced the K1000 became, I'd rather buy another KX these days (if I had to) and I am almost glad to own a Maginon K1000 (with ugly traffic light meter read out), for stealth too.

The KX, KM and K2 I think came out in 75 or 76. The K1000 was introduced later but I am not sure when. I think after the ME, MX were introduced and the KX, KM and K2 were discontinued. I think Pentax wanted to use the tooling for these K cameras to make the K1000 cheap. It was produced in Japan for a very short time before production shifted to Hong Kong.

It was fine to buy a K1000 back then because with K1000 price back then one could only buy a P&S instead of an SLR. With the price of the K1000 today it makes no sense to buy one.

Moving On thanks for the information. It is always a quest for cheaper parts and labor.

 

While it's a norm today. Back then few of the Japanese cameras were made outside of Japan.

If you came of age in the late '60s-early '70s, the cameras with additional distributor logo will always look more "right" than the later versions with only the camera company logo. There's something really cool and extra-retro (in hindsight) in the appearance of the Honeywell Pentax and Beseler Topcon prism fronts. The old Honeywell Pentax Spotmatics always get a smile from me, the later K series is just as capable but looks more ordinary.

 

The K1000 is one of the oddest camera success stories of all time. It was a runaway hit for two decades, despite being a dated-looking total stripper with no automation in an era when Canon's AE1 and then the Minolta Maxxum all but wiped out manual cameras. Unfortunately as noted above, the longer it went on and the more popular it got, the more corners were cut in production to maintain an attractive price. The original KX, KM, K2 it was derived from were more premium: Pentax had bet the farm on this trio, their first bayonet-mount bodies after many years as the king of M42 screw mount.

 

Somewhere around the turn of the millennium and the rise of eBay, the K1000 ceased being the "bargain" it was when sold new. Students and hipsters tend not to do any deep research before buying a used film camera: they jump on whatever the usual youTube or blog roundups anoint as "legendary classic". The K1000 is nothing more than a stripped-to-the-bone KX or KM: the underlying camera is the same in all three cases. If shopping today, choosing the KX or KM vs K1000 gets you a few more features and guarantees an all-metal, wel-built-in-Japan body. If you don't mind an electronic shutter, the K2 adds AE.

 

The later miniaturized MX and ME variants are a mixed bag that not everyone loves (the MX especially is one of those "cult" camera models that you could easily end up hating after you overpay for it). Most of the smaller lighter M lenses are great, when it works the original ME is a little gem. The later more complex ME updates lose some of the simple charm, while adding clunky-but-useful manual override controls (that can fail). The MX was Pentax' answer to the wildly popular Olympus OM1, and it overshot the mark. Some love it, some hate it: the meter is great indoors or in low light, but becomes invisible in bright outdoor light, and the MX cloth shutter is oddly noisier than the metal blade ME shutter (or OM1). The quirky top-of-the-line LX is best left to collectors at this point: way overpriced for what it is, and the repair issues are significant if you aren't a master at DIY or have access to a great service tech.

Edited February 19, 2020 by orsetto

I used (and wore out) MX bodies over about a 20 year period. I owned 4 of them and shot thousands of slides of artwork with them as well as a lot of other professional assignments and had very few repairs. When I moved on to LX bodies I downloaded the MX bodies to friends and family since they looked horrendous from use (lots of worn off paint, etc.) and would have sold for $10 or so. All of them kept on working for a while after that and were eventually retired for digital cameras. I didn't find the meter that hard to see in bright light, and it was very accurate with slide film. The shutter never struck me as particularly loud for an SLR, although nobody would have mistaken it for an M series Leica. The finder in the MX was superb--bright and contrasty and easy to focus. I have yet to try a DSLR that can match that finder for manual focusing. I agree that the K 1000 is grossly over priced in today's market given its minimal specs, but the college where I teach owns a lot of them and they do stand up to student use quite well. For teaching purposes, the lack of features is something of a bonus. No self timer means a lot fewer expressions of post adolescent angst which is a good thing when it comes to critique sessions. I still own two LX bodies that I don't use much at this point, but they still work. When I used them professionally they were also very reliable with only one repair for a frame counter. I know that LX reliability is questionable at this point, so I wouldn't recommend them to a newcomer to film, but they are fine cameras to shoot with, with very little mirror shock at slow speeds. I could routinely get away with 1/30 with my MX bodies but I found that 1/15 was almost as useful with the LX bodies. The bulk of the mirror shock came on the return rather than the raising of the mirror, so the shutter was already closed when it happened.

Pentax SLR Timeline:

Frontpage - www.pentax-slr.com

 

Everything you ever wanted to know about anything Pentax K-Mount related:

The K-Mount Page | Information about Pentax technology

oddest camera success stories of all time

 

As suggested, surely (don't call you Shirley?) one of the important factors was that just about every photography teacher in secondary schools across the world suggested this as a purchase for their students.

 

I've always thought that the plain-Jane/john Praktica L series were a better deal, but I am wracked (or racked) by frequent bouts of Ostalgie...

As suggested, surely (don't call you Shirley?) one of the important factors was that just about every photography teacher in secondary schools across the world suggested this as a purchase for their students.

 

I've always thought that the plain-Jane/john Praktica L series were a better deal, but I am wracked (or racked) by frequent bouts of Ostalgie...

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I owned a Praktica L for a couple of years--the shutter died while still under warranty, the 50 mm f/2.8 Domiplan waited until just out of warranty to lose auto diaphragm function, so I'm afraid I don't share your enthusiasm for the Praktica L series.The Domiplan still makes a good paperweight. But I admit that this is only one data point, so I could be wrong.

I have a bunch of Praktica Ls of different models, and all of their metal shutters work just fine. Usually what goes out (and not surprisingly) is the light meter on those models that had them.

 

The Meyer Domiplan, however, is certainly one of the worst lenses made. Optical quality is only so-so, but the diaphram mechanism almost never works, and certainly not for long. For some unexplained reason, the Exakta mount Domiplans seem more rugged.

 

However, only the very earlier Ls seem to have come new with Domiplans, Mostly there were Pancolors and Pentacon lenses on mine (perhaps because the Domiplans all failed long ago, at thato_O)

The original Spotmatic and Spotmatic F were 42mm Praktica/Pentax thread, not K mount. So I'm not sure how relevant the K mount web link is.

 

The difference between the original Spotmatic and Spotmatic F is that the F has open-aperture metering (presumably the F stands for 'full', as in full aperture metering). The lens range was also modified with its introduction, and those Super Multi-Coated (SMC) Takumars have an aperture follower lever in the mount, as well as a small pin that enables or prevents selection of manual aperture stop down.

 

Honeywell was the distributer for Asahi Pentax in the US. AFAIK, only Pentaxes destined for sale in the US

were marked 'Honeywell Pentax'. In the rest of the world the cameras continued to be marked Asahi Pentax and carried the AOC logo; at least up until the introduction of the K mount models.

The Meyer Domiplan, however, is certainly one of the worst lenses made.

Easily beaten to that title by the Ludwig Meritar! Also commonly fitted to basic model Prakticas.

Edited March 16, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

Pentax K1000 Hong Kong w/AOC and metal parts.

The original Spotmatic and Spotmatic F were 42mm Praktica/Pentax thread, not K mount. So I'm not sure how relevant the K mount web link is.

 

The OP asked, and the subject of this thread is in regard to the K1000... a K-Mount body. Somehow it got diverted to M42 mounts...